Saturday, September 29, 2012

Last weekend I took part in my 3rd CrossFit competition, not
counting the 2010 & 2011 CrossFit Open.
It was called the ‘Diamond of the Tough’. It was a lot of fun during and after, but not
so much fun right before. As much as I
enjoy competing in CrossFit competitions and workout with that as one of my
primary goals, I get really nervous and anxious as I come closer and closer to
an event. I was wicked nervous before
this one, as my wife Kandi can tell you.
But once they called my heat out and I was walking out to my position to
start the first WOD, I instantly felt better and focused. Kandi took a picture of me chatting with my
judge right before the WOD started and it surprised me how happy I looked right
then. Like any WOD that I have stressed
out over ahead of time, it felt really good to stop thinking and just starting
doing!

Overall I had a great time and was very glad that I went and
competed once again. Like every CrossFit
competition I have been to, it was a well-run event and a lot of fun. CrossFit is the only sport that I have been
involved in where 30 seconds before game time it is more than likely that the
guys you will be competing with any second will turn to you and wish you good
luck. Honestly, that does not really
happen very often anywhere else.

I also got to meet a couple CrossFit celebs, including one of
my CrossFit heroes idols, Freddy Camacho.

Freddy is just as happy in person as he appears to be in every photo I have ever seen of him. He is a very nice guy too!

Katie Hogan in the background

Workouts:

1. Bear, 5 rounds (Clean, front squat, STO, back squat, STO) without letting go of the bar and only a touch and go on the ground at the end of each round. 8 minutes to complete and then as many deadlift reps as possible with the same weight.

2. 5-10-15 yard shuttle run

3. Standing broad jump

4. 3 rounds for time:

- 24 Double-unders

- 12 OHS w/95#s

- 6 C2B pull-ups

1. 175 lbs. + 18 deadlifts.

Tried to reset my grip in the hang and lost my balance and dropped the bar.

2. 14.34 seconds

3. 92 inches

4. 3:52

Overall, I finished 9th out of 20 in may age group (40-44) after finishing 6th in the on-line competition. Luckily for me, the scoring was weighted for the shuttle run and the broad jump. Those events were not weighted very heavily (10% each) and the genetic lack of speed and broad jump ability were not held against me compared the weighting for the scores of the the first and last event (40% each).

Tuesday, September 25, 2012

(just above the knee, and
then just below the knee – but off the ground, pause for 1 full second below
the knee before the second clean)

Rest 2-3 minutes

B. Every minute, on the minute, for 6 minutes:

5 Strict Pull-Ups (ladies – 3
reps)

Strict Handstand Push-Ups x
Max reps

C. Every minute, on the minute, for 6 minutes:

8 Pull-Ups

Kipping Handstand Push-Ups x
Max Reps

D. Every minute, on the minute, for 12 minutes:

Even Minutes: 5 Power Cleans
@ 65% or your 1-RM Clean

Odd Minutes: Row 200 Meters

Phases B-D should take no
more than 25 minutes – use no more than 1 transition minute between the phases.

A. 155#, 175, 195, 195,
195(F@below knee clean), 195

Fell over backwards on 5th
set. Other than that these felt pretty good. The contrast between above the
knee and below the knee was interesting.

B. 5,4,3,3,2(lost balance and
came off the wall), 3

C. 4, 3, 4, 3, 1, 3

I interpreted Max reps for
strict HSPUs and kipping HSPUs as meaning unbroken/without coming off the wall
and that is how I did them.

D. Power cleans at 165# (65%
of 255). All sets of power cleans were unbroken, with little or no pauses. Felt good on pull-ups today, rep range was
very doable. HSPUs felt pretty good, as did cleans.

I love/hate the shift from
going 4 or 6 minutes at a time on the first two AMRAPs and then doubling the
time domain for the third AMRAP. Really makes you have to suck it up and be
mentally strong during the third AMRAP to keep moving, go unbroken, etc.

A. 205# felt pretty heavy today,
probably because of the 30 C&J w/185#s that I did yesterday. I had much
more difficulty cycling 205#s and using good form during the second half of the
4 minutes than I expected. I think I missed two reps because I did not get
under the bar/bring my elbows around quick enough. Much more singles than last
time. Need to focus on getting under the bar quickly on power cleans &
snatches to be more efficient/save energy. C2Bs unbroken during part A. Yay!

B. Cycling with 155#s felt great! I
think I went through 5 rounds before I broke the power cleans up. C2Bs got hard
at that point, and I only did 2-3 at a time for the rest of part B. Could
really speed up with just a little improvement on those, but still feel much
better than in the past.

C. Kind of died here and still got 20
more reps than last time, so not too shabby. With a little more mental
toughness on the KBs and practice with doubles, 3 + very doable. Gotta think
one more rep, than 2 more reps, then 3 more, etc. Now that my foot is better, I
will plug in quick 15-20 rep sets of doubles during the rest between heavy sets
here and there

Sorry
about deviating from the program. The 30 C&Js w/185s came up on the main
site and in our gym recently and I just really wanted to test myself on it.
Huge progress on a heavier weight WOD like that between when I started
following the competitor’s blog late last year and now. Thanks CJ Martin!

Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Three second descent to the bottom of the front squat,
then pause for one full second (“one-one thousand”) and get up to standing as
quickly as possible, then reset, breath, tighten up and perform another front
squat with no tempo restriction. Build to the heaviest load possible.

B. 12:23 (paused to catch my breath on the lunges, but
never put the barbell down)

C. Skipped.

Main goal on part B was to not put the barbell down on the
lunges. No reason for me to do so if it is on my back. Thought about carrying
in the front rack for the challenge but that would have given me an excuse to
put it down. I was reasonably fast on the pwr clns, but broke the pull-ups up a
lot.

Skipped C because I have been feeling pretty beat up and
spent for the last week or two. Today I felt like my body was finally feeling a
little better. Wanted to avoid smashing it too much today, give it a little
more rest and ride that wave into Friday. However…I sort of feel like a weenie
for skipping it after seeing CJ’s 2nd post!

I am looking forward to attending the Athlete’s camp. I
think that I struggle with the mental game part of CrossFit as much as anything
else.

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Pull barbell from
floor to just above the knee and pause for 1-2 seconds – you should feel weight
distributed through mid and rear foot, tension through your hamstings, and lats
should actively pull the barbell into your thighs, then stand tall, then clean
from the high hang position.

Saturday, September 15, 2012

“Last Man Standing”
On the minute, every minute, perform the following – once you fail at a certain
movement, move immediately to the next (starting with the next minute
interval):

Push Press x 1 rep
(start at 135/95 lb and add 10 lb. every minute)

——–Front Squat x 1 rep
(start with the weight you finished with on the push press, add 10 lb. every
minute)
——–
Picking up on the one minute segment that you would have been starting your
next round of front squats, perform20 Wall Ball Shotson the minute, every minute, for up to
7 minutes. (If you make all 7 sets, terminate this portion of the workout and
move on.)
If you cannot complete all 20 shots within the designated minute, this portion
of the workout is over . . . move on to the next phase of the workout.
——–
Picking up on the minute you would have been starting your next set of wall
ball shots, perform 10 Handstand Push-Ups(ladies – 7 reps) on the minute, every
minute, for a maximum of 7 minutes.
If you cannot complete all 10/7 HSPUs within the designated minute, your
workout is over.

(Goal is to keep working for as long
as possible…to be the last man/woman standing.)

A. 215

10# PR! Came pretty
close to getting 225# and a 20# PR. Next
time :)

B. 265

C. 7 rounds

D. 0 -shoulders were done

100% more confident on wallballs since we worked them so
hard last year on the competition programming.
Like night and day. Only broke
once on the last set of 20 reps. On the
HSPUs, I probably should have scaled these with a pad and practiced kipping
HSPUs, but my shoulders were fried at this point.

The
row was really tough after B & C. I did a WOD last week with 2 x heavy
squats on the minute for 5 minutes and then a 10 minute row for calories. I
thought that was bad. That was not bad,
this was BAD! The heavy-ish hang squat cleans were much easy than they were a
few months ago. OHS, not so much.

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

(heavy is based on how you feel – if you
feel fast and your mechanics are good, keep building, if you feel sluggish or
mechanics are off, back off and work on speed and technique)

B. Take
10-15 minutes to build to a heavy Bench Press

(same thing here – heavy is based on how
you are feeling today – not on what you think your max load should be)

C.
For 20 minutes, perform the following movements every odd and even
minute:

Even Minutes: Power Snatch x 3 reps @
70-75% of today’s 1-RM

Odd Minutes: Bench Press x 3 reps @ 75-80%
of today’s 1-RM

A. 165 lbs (PR is 185)

Felt a little sluggish and failed a couple
of times on 165. I was not pulling under
the bar enough/fast enough today. Dropped
back down to 155 and focused on technique and then came back up to 165 and got
it.

B. 265 lbs.

C. 125 (75%) Power snatch x3 , 215 (80%)
bench press x3

Focused on full extension and pulling
myself under the bar on the power snatches.
Felt good to work the power snatch outside a metcon. Been awhile for me.

Never really
recovered after A, but felt good strength wise on the thrusters @135 for a
change. Looking forward to doing more of these multi-metcons. They suck in a
good way and build metcon capacity like crazy.

C. Against
an 8-minute running clock, perform the following, in order:

“Fran”

Complete rounds of 21, 15 and 9 reps for
time of:

95 lb. Thruster

Pull-Ups

and then,

using the same barbell, build the barbell
and establish a 1-RM Clean & Jerk in the remainder of the 8 minutes.

POST TWO SCORES – You must post two scores;
(1) time to complete “Fran”, and (2) heaviest successful clean & jerk
within the 8 minute period.

TOTAL SCORE – Your total score will be your
1-RM Clean & Jerk in lbs, MINUS 1 lb for every second over two minutes it
takes to complete “Fran.” ADD 1 lb for
every second under two minutes. For example: Fran = 2:07, C&J = 275, TOTAL = 268

A. 5×210, 4×225, 3×240, 2×250, 2×270,
285×1(F)

I stalled out for about a full second at
the bottom of the last squat. I should have done 280. My legs are still a
little tired from a WOD that I did w/heavy squat cleans followed by a 10 min.
row for calories on Thursday, so I was not expecting to PR. But 270×2 felt
pretty good. It almost matched my 2-RM of 272.5×2 and I could only do one rep @
270 back on July 2. I have been in a slump on both my front and back squat
since PR’ing on both back during the first couple of cycles that we did after
the regionals. Volume in the programming then just fit better for me vs. the
higher volume over the last couple of squat cycles maybe?

July 2, 2012, 270 lbs.x1, June 4th, 300×1.
April 20th, 290×1

B. 205#s then (F@215). I moved on after the
fail

C. Fran = 4:13, C&J = 215 lbs., SCORE =
82

Compare to the last time we did this WOD in
December 2011, Fran = 4:16 C&J = 195, SCORE = 59. So a nice little PR on
this WOD. Considering we have done much less metcon work than back then, I am
happy with some improvement and looking forward to trying it again a couple of
months fro now. My Fran PR is 4:04, and that was after working up to a 1-RM
Strict Press prior to Fran in the same workout. Last 3 times I have done Fran,
in addition to prior to following the competition blog, something heavy has
been programmed into the daily WOD too. Hopeful that means that if I do it
alone I could PR by a much bigger margin some day. From a training perspective,
I like doing it this way. Very good training for similar WOD in a competition.

I power cleaned B&C today. Felt that
after the fail on the front squat, squat cleaning would have been counter
productive.

Friday, September 7, 2012

(You may elect to do either a power or
full, but please note below next to the weight lifted whether it was a full or
power snatch.)

Do not take more than 10 total attempts . .
. we have a fun day planned for Saturday.

C. Five
sets for max reps of:

Strict Handstand Push-Ups x Max reps @ 1010

(if you break tempo, you terminate the set
– no resting at either the top or bottom)

Rest exactly 60 seconds

Perform these per Games standards – abmat
sandwiched between two plates – the abmat should be the same level as the
plates.

(compare to July 16, 2012)

A. 106

No compare to in July, I was laying off
double-unders due to heal up my foot. 28 unbroken to start, then about a half a
dozen trips before finding my groove again to go 8-12 reps at time. Only 4th or
5th time I have done double-unders in the last 4 months, so pretty good
considering. Just need to relax.

Squat snatches except for the last one,
which I power snatched. Snatch felt really good when the weight was light, but
once I got a little heavy I just did not have the pop in my hips today and was
not pulling back/getting under the bar at the top. Did a heav-ish WOD yesterday
for an online comp with some heavy squat cleans followed by a 10 minute row for
calories. Still a little spent from that.

C. 7/5/4/3/3 (compared to 5/4/4/3/2 in
July, +4)

Felt pretty good today on HSPUs. Definitely
feeling the extra strength from all the pressing and dips we have been doing.